Summary |
In contrast to Russell, who claimed that sentences of the form "The F is G" are false if there is no F, Strawson (prefigured to some extent by Frege) claimed that the lack of an F would result in sentences of this form being either indeterminate or truth-valueless, not false. Strawson's basic idea is that a sentence of this form doesn't assert that there is an F; rather, it presupposes it. Without the existence of an F, it is highly unclear what the sentence says. While many have found this analysis plausible for certain sentences, such as "The King of France is bald," it is decidedly less plausible for others, such as "The King of France is sitting in that chair." In fact, judgments regarding sentences like these seem to be highly context-sensitive, leaving us without an easy answer regarding how we ought best understand this set of phenomena. |